1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to location-based operations and messaging. More specifically, the present invention relates to location-based operations and messaging in the context of mobile devices such as cellular telephones, smart phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), wireless electronic mail devices, and the like.
2. Description of Related Art
An individual may receive communication in a variety of ways, including through a telephone call, short message service (SMS) text messaging, instant messaging (IM), and/or electronic mail (e-mail). Further, an individual may have multiple telephone numbers, text messaging services, instant messaging services, and/or e-mail providers. For example, an individual may have separate telephone numbers for home, office, and mobile device(s); separate e-mail addresses for personal and work use; and use separate instant messaging services for different groups of contacts.
The variety of available communication media allows for an individual to receive communications in multiple ways. An advantage of an individual having multiple communication media is that these media provide options and alternatives should one or more of the media fail to provide means to promptly reach the individual. Notwithstanding, these multiple options for communicating with an individual complicate the decision-making process with regard to which communication media to use.
Successfully contacting an individual may, for example, require some foreknowledge regarding his/her availability with respect to each communication medium. Without such knowledge, there is presently no way to determine which communication medium has the best chance of reaching the individual short of testing each communication medium individually. Such trial-and-error may be inefficient, time-consuming, and ultimately fail to reach the individual since the availability of each communication medium and, further, an individual's availability through a particular medium are not static. Availability and likelihood of successful communication through a particular medium constantly change due to, at least in part, the movement of the individual to different physical locations, which may have different restrictions or limitations with respect to communication.
Some mobile devices include location-based utilities, such as accessibility to or interaction with the Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS-equipped mobile devices may be capable of determining location of the device using trilateration. Trilateration uses signals from a plurality of GPS satellites and the time the signals take to reach a GPS-equipped mobile device to determine distances between each of the plurality of GPS satellite and the mobile device. Those distances may be used to determine the physical location of the mobile device.
Further, some presently available mobile devices continually transmit signals through base stations. A base station may include multiple transmitters/receivers (transceivers) for the purpose of connecting mobile devices within a particular geographical region to their network. Each base station may serve regions, also referred to as “cells,” ranging in size from a fraction of a mile across to 10 miles or more across. Identifying which cell is servicing the mobile device may serve to determine the general physical location of the mobile device.
Some GPS-equipped telephones may also operate in conjunction with the Assisted Global Positioning System (A-GPS). In conjunction with GPS, A-GPS utilizes information from other sources, such as base stations, to help determine a mobile device's location more quickly and accurately than GPS alone.
There is a need in the art for taking location information, such as that provided by GPS, base stations, and/or A-GPS, into account in intelligently determining a communication medium for efficiently contacting a user of a mobile device.